wireless router

Since attaching my linksys wireless router wrtp54g to my desktop pc the internet connection goes away after about 1/2-1 hour. The pc is still connected but will not allow access to either computer. Also now my pc locks up a lot. Thank you!

I have a number of black spots up stairs and downs stairs with the existing wireless router ,
I want to fit a new wireless router to correct this problem, what routers would over come this in a house that has internal solid walls.
There could be 4 wireless laptops in use in my home in Dublin Ireland
Patrick

Do you want to replace your current router or add an additional one? You
can't have two routers in the same network. You need instead a wireless
access point (AP). You can either connect it to your current router via an
Ethernet wire (longest distance is 100m; simplest to configure, although
there's the wire hassle), or wirelessly, by configuring the AP as a
repeater. Not all routers are compatible with all APs configured as
repeaters, so you should check with your vendor before buying an AP.
Furthermore, configuration could be difficult.

If you gave your router's make and model, we might be able to give more
help.

Hi Pat,
Radio communications involves transmitters as well as receivers. You can (depending on the wireless router that you use) run third-party firmware to increase the default (and legal) power level from tens of milliwatts to around 200 (you might want to look at cooling the radio chip if you go that high!)
Problem is that you are unlikely to be able to equally boost the transmit power from your laptop(s). This means that you will be able to "hear" the router at the laptop,but the router would be unable to "hear" the laptop - and one-way communications doesn't work!
"Wireless N" systems are claimed to give much more range, even (the salesman told me!) when the computer at the other end has Wireless B/G. MY personal experience is that using a Wireless N router gave no improvement (without an "N" adapter in the remote computer, which I didn't try)
The best solution would be to hard-wire additional Access Points (or routers) at strategic place(s) around the house, connected from the primary router. If this is not practicable, you could use "repeaters", which are available from most of the suppliers selling wireless routers and APs.
One problem with repeaters is that they have to "share their work" between receiving and transmitting, and so usually halve the data rate on the down-stream side. This is not likely to be a problem when you have a repeater capable of delivering "half of 54Mbps" or even "half of 11Mbps" which is connected to an average "broadband" internet connection (anything from 250Kbps to maybe 8Mbps, depending on your service) - BUT, it might be a problem if you are using the network for really high bandwidth multimedia between different computers on your home network.
If you go down the repeaters solution route, do buy the same brand of repeater as your original AP or wireless router; getting "same brand" systems to work is not always easy (and the "automatic configuration" boasted by some brands may, or may not, work - I have found that the hard way and still can't explain it!
Good Networking!, Stu

Rick,
You CAN have multiple routers cascaded - it's just a matter of keeping one router set for DHCP and the others "pass-through". Can get a bit messy, and "trial-and-error" sometimes, but I've done it several times.
Stu

I had a problem very similar to yours. In my case I had a large house ( 3 floors) with a Linksys WRT54G Wireless router. In my case I needed a good connection at the far end of the house on the first floor and the router is at the other end of the house on the second floor.
I added a Linksys WRE54G range extender and this solved the problem. It took a bit of work and I had to actually look at the instructions to get the WPA encryption going. I purchased a refurb and it was a bit more difficult to set up then the newer models.
Anyway if you have a Linksys router this may be a good choice. Once it was setup the PC showed full signal and had good data throughput. So the extender does it's job.
The only trouble I have had was due to a thunder storm. We had a power glitch and the range extender lost it's connection to the router. I had to power cycle the extender and that brought it back online.
Best of luck
Sculler

Hi
I would suggest that you buy an router with antenna booster but the moast economical way is to build your kind of antenna boste with an pice of paper and aluminum foil and increase the signal strength by 3-7 dB in order to maybe get some more power but the signal will be more focused than before ...
If you need 360 degrees coverage than an additional router with booster is needed i think one placed on the street level and the other on the top floor.
This way you can cover an bigger area of the house but all depends on location of the router in the end.
Basic rule High up and far away from speakers, TV:s and stuff to maximise the range and keep up the speed and coverage as well ...
Channel to use differs and the automtic channel selection in D-Link does not work so i use the manual configuration insted.
Good luck and let me know if you need help and if i can help of course.
Matthias

My original problem ended up being solved by reloading the firmware on the router. After that one of the laptops would work but the other one would not connect for more than a few seconds before again dropping off. I fixed that one by doing a system restore to a much earlier date to where that computer had a different anit-virus software on it. Seems the anti-virus software that had been recently loaded had caused the glitch.

I have a linksys 2.4 54 mbps wireless router directly connected to my desktop. My laptop cannot find the router even when within inches of the router. At other sites away from home the laptop can connect to the internet but not when next to the router.
Any suggestions?

This may be a very silly idea, but have you checked the set-up page on the router to make sure that wireless is not disabled?
If that is okay, can you run "Network Stumbler" on the laptop to see if it is detecting your router that way - if it isn't, then I'd suspect the router as being faulty.

IF this si a wireless router you may need to activate the wireless signal. Go into the router and folllow teh instructions for this feature. Also I suggest that you go to teh linksys website and get the latest firmware update. This will also help.

Hi
there is 2 possible reasons ...
if you can not see the router:
1: the wireless is dissabled
2: broadcasting of "ssid" is disabled
if the wireless is enabled and ssid enabled than the following reasons ...
You have interfernace problems on the specific channel, change channel in my d-link the automatic channel does not work ...
Matthias Nilsson

Hi Rick,
Don't forget a good Cisco network switch, preferably a GB switch, to eliminate "router stacking", DMZ router zones, to speedup throughput, stabilize signals, and control the traffic. I make many network issues just go away with the installation of a GOOD switch between router and devices.

There are a lot of good ideas here. One strange thing I've found is that once I've connected to a network, if there is another in the area with the same name, it my laptop does not try to re-arbitrate the channels/other settings. You didn't say what you were using as a SSID. You might try making that quite unique the, go into your wireless connections and delete the previous profile for your home network (and any you won't be likely to connect to again) and make a new connection to the SSID, checking properties to be sure the channel and encryption are correct (WEP, WPA, etc and AES, TKIP, etc). If the latter seems wrong, and you didn't do it already, update the laptop firmware.
Also, look in the router configuration for lease time on your addresses. You mentioned something earlier about an hour -- you may need to adjust that.

I would say that your laptop is not setup to match your network. You have
to make sure that your security key is the same as the wireless router.
Your RSS name has to be the same for all wireless devices, or they won't
talk with each other. For all devices on the same network, none of them
should have the last 4 digits, to be the same. Each item needs it's own
different IP addresses like houses on a street, all have different
addresses. I assume that the router is connected to your modem to access the
internet? make sure that the laptop and the router are transmitting on the
same channel (frequency). For more information your best source is to
contact Linksys by telephone, or go to their web site, and put a search for
the proper manual that you seek. You should be able to download the
document for to guide you.

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